MY colour's brown, my shape's uncouth,
On ilka side I hae a mouth,
And, strange to tell, I will devour
My bulk of meat in half-an-hour.
This riddle first appeared in Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, published in 1835, Vol. IV., page 337, under the Notice of Tannahill written by Mr. Alexander Whitelaw, mentioned in the Note to No. 96. Mr. Whitelaw stated that—“After school hours, it was customary for the boys to put riddles to each other, or, as they call it, to ‘speir guesses.’ Robert usually gave his in rhyme; and a schoolfellow, to whom we are indebted for some of the particulars of this Memoir, remembers one of them to this day. This riddle, on being solved, turned out to allude to the big, brown, unshapely nose of a well-known character, who took large quantities of snuff.”
The above riddle, with the same remarks, appears in a sketch of Tannahill in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, 11th November, 1837, Vol. IV., page 332. In the Memoir of the 1846 edition, not only the above riddle and remarks, but the whole paragraph appeared without acknowledgment. It again appeared in the Memoir written by Mr. Lamb in the edition of 1873.—Ed.
[Semple 174]